Joe Taylor/Black Yak Custom Rifles
My family has 5 rifles with hand carved stocks by Joe Taylor from Flint, MI. The stocks were completed back the 1970's. I am looking for any information I can find about either Joe Taylor or the Black Yak company. We are getting ready to sell 2 and I need more info. If anyone has any thing that may help, we would be much obliged.
Thank you!
Thank you!
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Joe taylor (Black Yak Blueing Company) ruined all other guns for me.
My father was friends with Joe back in the 70's and my family has a number of his rifles. It wasn't just the stock that was hand made, it was the whole rifle. He used Douglas barrels, Mauser actions and redfield 2-7 scopes.(he hated open sites)Each gun was custom made for the owner, usually he stamped the name and sometimes the year in the barrel. I remember visiting his shop in the late 70's when I was very young and it's something I will always remember. To have that rare oportunity to watch a true master craftsman at work is priceless. Joe would only build a gun for you if he believed you would hunt with it, he said "I make hunting rifles not ornaments".
That being said, each of his rifles was a work of art. The checkering was done by hand, oak leaves were stamped, and there was a molding or a hand carving on the side of the stock. Your rifles were purchased for somewhere in the range of $250-$350 as Joe charged $25 over his cost to build the rifles and he donated that to charity. He built rifles because he loved to, not to make money. He was in the midst of teaching a younger relative his craft towards the end of his life but unfortunatley Black Yak Bluing Co. died with Joe around 1980.
I wish I'd have found this post much sooner as odds are you've already sold them.
Please take a minute to read the Posting Guidelines by using the link found under the Gunbroker logo on every page.0 -
Redwing7,
I appreciate that post. A lot of us remember back when and how it was great to get to watch someone do a great piece of work. All the while just being associated with guns.[:D] I had a couple of greats that I looked up to. Never knew what they both really meant to the shooting world until long after my younger days.0 -
Actually I still do have the Rifles. Things got side tracked and I haven't looked into selling them much more, but my father still very much wants to sell them. Since he is not knowledgeable about the internet at all it is up to me to do so.
I do have pictures of both the guns if you would like to see them. Pretty much everything you spoke about in your post was what my father has told me. My grandfather was great friends with Joe as well, and the guns were most definitely used for hunting! Joe offered to make a gun for each of my grandfathers boys (my uncles) and they are numbered accordingly. My grandfather already had other guns of his at the time.
Again, if you would like to see the guns and possibly offer any other info on them, I would be more than happy to send them via email. My father told me he knew of one of his guns which sold recently at auction (few years back,) and apparently is sold for a pretty penny...do you know if that was so?
Thanks!
Crystal0 -
khrys20,
I'm glad you found your way back to continue this thread!
If you have photographs of the firearms being discussed, it would be of great interest to many of the members who read here. Instructions for posting photographs can be found in a 'Sticky' located at the top of this forum titled 'Posting Photographs'. If you run into a problem e-mail me or post again.
Best.0 -
I will post a few pictures of mine when I get a chance. I personally have never seen one at an auction. 0 -
In the process of uploading photos now. I need to sort through them as I took about 50 of them. Somehow or another I lost my information on one of them, but my father and I will speak this evening and I will get all the information again.
First gun: 30-06, Fully functioning, 1975, slide release shell chamber, serial #1118186, 42" length.
(Disclaimer: I am only relaying this information exactly as my father has wrote it, so I am sorry if anything was lost in translation.)0 -
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This is the 30-06. It has the buck carved into it.0 -
This is the one I need to get all the other info on this evening. 0
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